Facepunch Review Discussion: We have absolutely nothing yet edition - General

In a few threads there was a lot of discussion of people wanting to create a game/other media review site ran by facepunch users. Now that those threads are DDT'd I asked a mod if it was OK to continue the discussion of the possible review site and he gave OK. This thread is for the discussion of the possible reviews site. Do NOT bring up you-know-who and their scandal, even if it did spawn this. A few points to think/post about; Who will host the site, how will it be paid for? Who will be the owner? Will we even have a owner? Personally I think a more crowd owned/democratic structure would be beneficial. Site name? Obviously "facepunch reviews" would be bad, since garry owns the FP name/logo and non-fp people will be driven away. How will writers be selected? How will writers be removed, if needed? What articles should be allowed? Strictly reviews, or perhaps other editorials/opinion pieces (marked so obviously)?

I'd give you the shit from the old FP Review Database we had going a couple years ago, but I think it all died with Dragary's site rip

I talked to Swilly about it and I'm interested. I also have no idea what's going on.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;45845746]We'll need writers that aren't completely biased tools, in other words they should not reflect FP at all, a site where all Valve games get an instant 10/10 and anything made by EA/Ubisoft gets an instant 0/10 would be utterly useless.[/QUOTE] Alternatively just don't review games if you aren't sure you can do it fairly. Like rating CoD or CS:GO low would make no sense: those games are extremely popular, even if they aren't necessarily the best examples in their genre. But I personally hate them, so I wouldn't bother touching them.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;45845746]We'll need writers that aren't completely biased tools, in other words they should not reflect FP at all, a site where all Valve games get an instant 10/10 and anything made by EA/Ubisoft gets an instant 0/10 would be utterly useless.[/QUOTE] im known to be an unbiased source, i give all games 4/10 hire me

Remove writers by dipping them into boiling oil. Add writers by putting them in chains.

You could just have multiple reviewers do the same game, make it less of a core author staff and more of a crowd funded review platform. Well written reviews get sent to the top. This way, people could have several different people's opinion on a game before they buy it. Incentivize well written reviews by offering a percentage of advertisement profits for each view of their review. The last part might not work super well for a startup site, but it's an idea.

I think a site without a scoring system would be cool. That way people would actually read about the content to find out the good and the bad about a game.

[QUOTE=Swebonny;45845813]I think a site without a scoring system would be cool. That way people would actually read about the content to find out the good and the bad about a game.[/QUOTE] No "3/10 it was okay"??? Swebonny, are you high

This is kind of a crazy idea, but what about having an "author review" section or something? Like, community reviews for different writers. Have some up/downvote system or something. Sure it'll probably get spammed to fuck at some point, but I think it would be worth it for the trust you could build and the feedback you could get.

[QUOTE=Swebonny;45845813]I think a site without a scoring system would be cool. That way people would actually read about the content to find out the good and the bad about a game.[/QUOTE] I think that's a given. At most a short summary paragraph at the end.

The way Rock Paper Shotgun did their applications for new writers was to make them make a short review about any game the applicant wanted, so that would be a good way of doing it. Removing writers should 100% not be based on the community, but their opinions should be taken into consideration. Why not a Gamespotesque site that is News/Reviews/Editorials? The focus would still be reviews, of course, but nobody is going to go to a site because it just has some reviews and opinion pieces. As for site name, it should be community sourced.

honestly ratings suck and don't convey info well, seriously what does 8/10 really MEAN, it could be "slightly shit" to "average" to "pretty good" I'd prefer it if you could just get away with "I do/don't recommend this because: [] " and if you have to do a rating scale then at least also have a recommendation thing at the end also get people who enjoy the genre to do reviews about games in the genre: ie. someone who plays a lot of FPS and knows what's good and what's not in a game has a stronger weight of opinion over joe schmo [editline]don't lose your way fpreviews[/editline] and kinda got ninja'd by everyone else

Well, the idea we had was that like three or four people would all review the same game, and that those reviews would be posted together as an article. I had also mentioned, which people seemed to like in the other thread, that all articles/reviews would be peer reviewed by everyone else before posting, since trying to pick editors and such would be hard, especially early on but even in the long run. People would have to come to a consensus that the article meets good ethical and editorial standards.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;45845803]Yeah I guess that could work too, just balance it out so there's at least someone out there writing a proper review for those kinds of games.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=joshjet;45845799]You could just have multiple reviewers do the same game, make it less of a core author staff and more of a crowd funded review platform. Well written reviews get sent to the top. This way, people could have several different people's opinion on a game before they buy it. Incentivize well written reviews by offering a percentage of advertisement profits for each view of their review. The last part might not work super well for a startup site, but it's an idea.[/QUOTE] This is exactly the kind of thing I liked about a site I used a long time ago. I can't remember the name of it, but they always had at least 2 viewpoints on any one game and it was pretty neat. On that note, I still kinda remember seeing the one about Homeworld: Guy1: Holy shit. Guy2: This game is good. Guy1: This game is really good. And it was just a hilarious circle jerk about how good it was. I would have been mad if it hadn't actually been that good, but people still talk about it for a reason.

I've been a part of several facepunch-spawned game review sites, they've all ended up dying off over time. I could see the same thing happening again. There was an idea me and OverV had a couple of years ago for a purely objective review site which never came to fruition. Also kotaku is pretty bad, but I like their "yes/no" review style

Making unbiased reviews of games would be practically impossible. Games, like all art, are extremely subjective experiences. Some people really like RTS games, for example, and some people don't. If a fan of RTS games reviewed a game, they would be more likely to rate it positively. The inverse is also true. I think that having a quest for unbiased reviews is a fool's errand. How does one place objectivity in a medium defined by subjectivity? Instead, I think we should put focus on transparency. Reviews can include statements such as "As a long time fan of (genre, series, etc.,)" or "As someone who has never really liked (ditto,)" so people can get a better idea of where the reviewer is coming from. Some sites do accept paid plugs, but they preface it with "This is a sponsored post by (company,)" which should be totally acceptable because they are being upfront and honest about the nature of the piece.

[QUOTE=icemaz;45845891]I've been a part of several facepunch-spawned game review sites, they've all ended up dying off over time. I could see the same thing happening again. There was an idea me and OverV had a couple of years ago for a purely objective review site.[/QUOTE] see thats the problem, that makes too much sense.... you and me should make a 100% subjective review site instead...

[QUOTE=Redswandir;45845870]honestly ratings suck and don't convey info well, seriously what does 8/10 really MEAN, it could be "slightly shit" to "average" to "pretty good" I'd prefer it if you could just get away with "I do/don't recommend this because: [] " and if you have to do a rating scale then at least also have a recommendation thing at the end also get people who enjoy the genre to do reviews about games in the genre: ie. someone who plays a lot of FPS and knows what's good and what's not in a game has a stronger weight of opinion over joe schmo[/QUOTE] Numbers are bullshit, but apparently people just really like numbers. I don't know, if you want to be experimental you could always change the formula. I don't see anything wrong with putting in numbers just for the hell of it though, as long as the actual written review is solid.

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;45845914]Numbers are bullshit, but apparently people just really like numbers. I don't know, if you want to be experimental you could always change the formula. I don't see anything wrong with putting in numbers just for the hell of it though, as long as the actual written review is solid.[/QUOTE] People like numbers because it's like reading the headline of the article.

[QUOTE=Swebonny;45845813]I think a site without a scoring system would be cool. That way people would actually read about the content to find out the good and the bad about a game.[/QUOTE] Many have tried this and they found that people just stopped using their site. The best system I have seen is Kotaku's "should you buy this game yes/no" system. Even though kotaku sucks.

[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;45845935]People like numbers because it's like reading the headline of the article.[/QUOTE] If people don't want to read the article anyway then I guess you might as well make the headline interesting :V though I'd be disappointed if there wasn't at least one person who gave every game a 9/10 regardless of what they write in the actual review

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;45845914]Numbers are bullshit, but apparently people just really like numbers. I don't know, if you want to be experimental you could always change the formula. I don't see anything wrong with putting in numbers just for the hell of it though, as long as the actual written review is solid.[/QUOTE] A paragraph long recap near the top/bottom would do fine. Maybe a "Would I Recommend This - Y/N" too. If people don't want to read that, Metacritic does exist for number scores.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;45845897]Making unbiased reviews of games would be practically impossible. Games, like all art, are extremely subjective experiences. Some people really like RTS games, for example, and some people don't. If a fan of RTS games reviewed a game, they would be more likely to rate it positively. The inverse is also true. I think that having a quest for unbiased reviews is a fool's errand. How does one place objectivity in a medium defined by subjectivity? Instead, I think we should put focus on transparency. Reviews can include statements such as "As a long time fan of (genre, series, etc.,)" or "As someone who has never really liked (ditto,)" so people can get a better idea of where the reviewer is coming from. Some sites do accept paid plugs, but they preface it with "This is a sponsored post by (company,)" which should be totally acceptable because they are being upfront and honest about the nature of the piece.[/QUOTE] That is part of the reason for doing it with multiple people reviewing one game. Facepunch is notoriously divisive, so you'll easily get multiple views on a single game, which can be all shared within an article to give a better spectrum.

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;45845951]If people don't want to read the article anyway then I guess you might as well make the headline interesting :V though I'd be disappointed if there wasn't at least one person who gave every game a 9/10 regardless of what they write in the actual review[/QUOTE] And then you start making clickbait articles and end up being no different from the rest [editline]30th August 2014[/editline] It really depends who your target market is: The higher the quality of the writing, the less people you'll have going to the site. The lower the quality of the writing, the more people you'll have going to the site. So whoever decides to go ahead with this will be operating at a loss.

Should have 3 reviewers per game, each with a particular role in approaching that game, 1 focusing on the best parts of the game, (in their opinion) 1 focusing on the worst parts of the game, and one focusing on the good and bad parts as a whole, and aggregate all 3 parts into an overall review.

[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;45845965]That is part of the reason for doing it with multiple people reviewing one game. Facepunch is notoriously divisive, so you'll easily get multiple views on a single game, which can be all shared within an article to give a better spectrum.[/QUOTE] Gamespot does this. There are those notorious negative Dark Souls 2 and Bioshock Infinite ones.

I think maybe three people review each game/thing that way you get different views on it, all from the same place, but not to many that reading it all becomes a chore. I'd be down to write reviews of games, but I'm more console orientated than PC, so that could be either an advantage or a disadvantage. [editline]wait shit[/editline] [QUOTE=RayvenQ;45846046]Should have 3 reviewers per game, each with a particular role in approaching that game, 1 focusing on the best parts of the game, (in their opinion) 1 focusing on the worst parts of the game, and one focusing on the good and bad parts as a whole, and aggregate all 3 parts into an overall review.[/QUOTE] I like this, im very good at complaining and finding flaws in things

Ideally, I think it should start as just reviews, then after a little it should move in to both reviews and news. And it absolutely needs to be clear of any connections at all between us and those being covered. So if by some chance we actually got a review copy of a game, even that would need to be stated. If Ubisoft throws HTC phones at us during a press events about their latest game, then all subsequent coverage should mention that.

[QUOTE=RayvenQ;45846046]Should have 3 reviewers per game, each with a particular role in approaching that game, 1 focusing on the best parts of the game, (in their opinion) 1 focusing on the worst parts of the game, and one focusing on the good and bad parts as a whole, and aggregate all 3 parts into an overall review.[/QUOTE] Except that will make one person praise it as being the best game this decade, one thinking it's the worst game this decade, and one actually having a worthwhile review. The writing would be so incredibly off throughout the review. Having multiple people do multiple reviews focusing on the game as a whole is probably the best way to pull it off.